Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Loving and Living Alone (Hardcover)
Staff Reviews
This memoir was fascinating to read as a woman who has been happily single for the majority of her adult life, but also as a person who is deeply interested in relationship dynamics. If you don’t already question modern relationship dynamics, Amy Key will have you doing so before the last page. This book doesn’t make claims about whether romantic relationships are ultimately good or bad, but it certainly admits to their complexity. It questions the widely held social belief that embracing romantic love is universally necessary, and often more morally righteous than going without. Where does it fall on the scale of importance when compared to familial love, platonic love, or self-love? Why do we often express sadness for people who aren’t in relationships, even when they’ve told us they are happy without? How does embracing or rejecting romance affect how we move through our lives and among our fellow human beings? I had to start making notes in the margins of the pages. The fact that this philosophical pondering is seen through the lens of Joni Mitchell’s album Blue makes it even more interesting. I found myself wondering about and questioning my relationship with music, books, and movies that have shaped my relationship with the world. 10/10 recommend. I’m already calling it the best memoir of 2023!
-Jenna
— From Mesmerizing May Staff Picks
Description
Most Anticipated Books of 2023: The Millions, The Rumpus
“The poet Amy Key’s first book might be the most hyped memoir of 2023 (or at least a close second to Spare)… This raw, gorgeous, pulsing memoir is…the harbinger of a real talent.” —Laura Hackett, Sunday Times [UK]
Amy Key—a writer “of rare and strange magic” (Guardian)—probes the art of living without romance in this soul-stirring debut.
When British poet Amy Key was growing up, she envisioned a life shaped by love—and Joni Mitchell’s album Blue was her inspiration. “Blue became part of my language of intimacy,” she writes, recalling the dozens of times she played the record as a teen, “an intimacy of disclosure, vulnerability, unadorned feeling that I thought I’d eventually share with a romantic other.” As the years ticked by, she held on to this very specific idea of romance like a bottle of wine saved for a special occasion.
But what happens when the romance we are all told will give life meaning never presents itself??Now single in her forties, Key explores the sweeping scales of romantic feeling as she has encountered them, using the album Blue as an expressive anchor: from the low notes of loss and unfulfilled desire—punctuated by sharp, discordant feelings of jealousy and regret—to the deep harmony of friendship, and the crescendos of sexual attraction and self-realization.
Finding solace in Mitchell’s songs, Key plumbs Blue’s track list for themes that resonate with her heart’s seasons. Listening to the song “California,” she explores the mixed emotions that come with traveling alone in a world built for couples; she juxtaposes the lonely lyrics of “My Old Man” with the pleasurable art of curating a perfect apartment for one; and with the utmost tenderness, she parses out her decision to not have children with the eloquent “Little Green.”
Mapping the evolution of her early conceptions of love through her adulthood, Key offers a tender and nakedly candid celebration of the many forms of intimacy that often go unnoticed. An essential work for both the single and the partnered, Arrangements in Blue is a bold manual for building a life on your own terms.
About the Author
Amy Key is a poet and essayist based in London. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Luxe and Isn’t Forever. Arrangements in Blue was inspired by her viral Granta essay, “A Bleed of Blue.”
Praise For…
Courageous... [A] bracingly honest read.
— Alexis Burling - San Francisco Chronicle
The poet Amy Key’s first book might be the most hyped memoir of 2023 (or at least a close second to Spare)… [Key’s] yawning, cavernous want for love is expressed with a surprisingly sensual, luscious poeticism… This raw, gorgeous, pulsing memoir is…the harbinger of a real talent.
— Laura Hackett - Sunday Times [UK]
[Key’s] nonfiction debut is a courageously honest meditation on her partnerless life, and her inward and outward search for all the things a soulmate was supposed to deliver. Key’s deeply introspective quest is not just a hunt for what’s missing, but for what she has overlooked… [As] Key’s book demonstrates, there should be no shame in desiring intimacy, or seeking it outside the confines of romance. And those of us who experience long-term singleness need a broader emotional palette than blue.
— Emma John - The Guardian
British poet and essayist Key (Isn’t Forever) takes an intimate, idiosyncratic look at single life in her evocative first memoir . . . Filled with lyrical turns of phrase, this insightful take on living solo will appeal to poets, dreamers, and anyone marching to the beat of their own drum. It’s a lush and moving memoir.
— Publishers Weekly, starred review
Straddling positivity and cynicism, pride and despair, Key's artful inquiry asks us to question our focus on romantic love and consider all that remains outside of it and all that could flourish there, if we let it.
— Booklist
Looking back at her past romantic longings and collisions, Key considers the (inflated?) value of romantic love and finds her contradictory feelings on the matter reflected in Mitchell’s lyrics. There’s nothing poor-me about Arrangements in Blue; in Key’s hands, solitary life becomes more capacious—and more complicated—than I ever thought possible.
— Sophia M. Stewart, The Millions, “Most Anticipated: The Great 2023 Book Preview”
A beautiful, painful, liberating book. Amy Key writes with such tenderness and insight about a life without romantic love at its centre, exacting as to its impoverishments, exultant over its many and unexpected riches.
— Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City
Profound and poetic, vulnerable yet brave, I devoured Amy Key’s memoir about love, loss, memory and hope. An incredible writer, a stunning debut.
— Lisa McGee, creator of Derry Girls
There is a whole life pulsing within these pages, written with both clarity and eloquence, a glittering brightness that glints like stars in a navy velvet sky. A book to be read in astonishment and in admiration. Bewitching.
— Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat
Amy Key’s extraordinary Arrangements in Blue isn’t merely a commentary on Joni Mitchell’s Blue, but something bolder, more personal and shape-shafting, in line with Joni’s own art in that it takes no starting point for granted.
— Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World
From grief to anger to full-throttled joy, Amy Key hits every note of feeling with perfect pitch... An absolutely gorgeous work.
— Heather Christle, author of The Crying Book
Amy writes with rare integrity, courage and style about the pursuit of love?–?it's somehow both consoling and provoking, and a beautiful and necessary book.
— Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent
